Helena Kennedy, QC, grew up in a working-class Catholic family in GlasgowJACK HILL/THE TIMES

Ask Helena Kennedy, QC, to name the most important contribution she has made during a lifetime’s experience of the law, and she answers immediately: championing the cause of women failed by the system. Her early days as a young lawyer convinced her of a simple proposition — “the law fails women”. Whether it was inequality in the legal profession or facing the courts, she was determined to challenge the attitudes of the day that held women back.

“It used to be the case in the 1970s that some chambers just didn’t employ women,” she recalls. “Then the sex discrimination act came in and they would say, ‘Well, we’ve got one now, so we’ve done enough.’ It took a long time getting over that, as well…